Sounding the Center: History and Aesthetics in Thai Buddhist Performance / Edition 2

Sounding the Center is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honoring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge, and performance that underlies the classical court/i>

Overview

Sounding the Center is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honoring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge, and performance that underlies the classical court arts.

Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, Wong lays out the ritual in detail: the way it is enacted, the foods and objects involved, and the people who perform it, emphasizing the way the performers themselves discuss and construct aspects of the ceremony.

Related Subjects

Table of Contents

List of FiguresPreface: Attending a Ritual, Thinking about RitualAcknowledgmentsConventions and Orthography1. Men Who Become the Deity: The Thai Body in Performance, The Thai Body as History2. Performing Wai Khruu Ritual3. Knowledge and Power in Thai Culture: Teachers as Hermits4. Sounding the Sacred5. Inscribing the Wai Khruu Ritual: Two Written Accounts6. Inheritance and Nationalism: The Social Construction of Wai Khruu Rituals in Bangkok7. The Wai Khruu as a Gendered Cultural System8. Conclusions: Thoughts on ChangeAppendixesA. Glossary of Terms UsedB. List of the Naa Phaat Repertoire Used in the Wai Khruu RitualC. The Deities of Thai Court PerformanceD. Thai Instruments Mentioned in the TextE. CD ContentsF. Guide to Commercial RecordingsNotesReferencesIndex